First Encounters

"Well?"

"Well … What?"

"Don't try to fool me! I just saw Viktor walking away from this direction! Well??... Hermione…are you blushing?"

"Ginny! I am not! Besides, Viktor is always trying to talk to me, so … what's the big deal?"

"Actually, he's always trying to be with you alone! Needless to say that this must seem almost impossible to him thanks to those pathetic girls that keep chasing him, but you two look like you were pretty alone if you ask me! So … did something happen this time?"

Hermione closed her eyes and pressed her lips tight, a smooth smile escaping from them. Ginny's eyes popped.

"I knew it! And you weren't going to say anything, were you?"

"Well, I don't know … I'm a bit embarrassed. You don't even let me catch my breath!"

"Oh! Don't blame me! I'm not the one who took your breath away to begin with!"

"Ginny!"

Hermione's cheeks were turning a light shade of red; she could still feel the warm shiver taking over her lips. She drove her eyes to the floor smiling at the fresh memory.

"Well? Don't do this to me! Please. Tell me! He kissed you, didn't he?"

Hermione kept her eyes fixed on the presumably interesting floor as she pressed her fingertips against her still warm lips. She decided to look at her friend in the eyes and simply answer her.

"Yes, a matter of fact he did."

"Oh, this is so exciting! What was it like?"

"Ginny!"

"Come on! Did he just walk towards you and kissed you?"

"Merlin's pants no! He is a gentleman, you know!"

"Then … what was it like? How did he approach you?"

Hermione hesitated for a moment, but she couldn't find a good reason to not tell Ginny. As a matter of fact, she could not think of a better person to share this with.

"Well … actually we kind of bumped into each other. I was sort of rushing, and I didn´t see him. I just had a discussion with Ron because he said that…"

"Well, that's odd!" interrupted Ginny sarcastically. "Anyway, I don't care about Ron…"

"Ok then! But Let me do the talking. Well, he said hello and asked me if he could walk with me and well … we walked together and started talking. Actually he more or less asked me questions and I did the talking", she stopped and smiled for a moment. "You know… he did seem more nervous than usual".

"Hermione … he really fancies you. For what I can see you make him nervous."

Hermione stopped to think for a moment in what Ginny had just said. It felt nice to be able to make a guy nervous. And she had to admit that even she felt pleasure thinking that Viktor Krum liked her enough to feel nervous around her. She suddenly remembered that she was telling a story.

"Well, the point is that after a while we stopped walking, and he pointed out that we were alone. The minute he said that I could not help but feeling nervous. We just stood there for a couple of minutes saying nothing. It was very awkward." Hermione let a smile escape her lips as she talked. "Then he reached to grab my hand, and I let him. And … he leaned slowly towards me … and I … let him …"

Ginny's eyes had transformed into round plates. Her smile was even bigger than Hermione's. She considered that at this point of the conversation it wouldn't be too inappropriate to ask:

"Well, and what was that like? I mean … was it weird? Was it awkward?"

"Actually no … it wasn't," Hermione's cheeks were heading for bowling point by now. "Actually…it felt sweet and smooth. It was nice, really nice. He held my hand the entire time."

She stopped again to think. At the beginning of the year if someone would have told her that she was going to kiss the Quidditch star that everyone absolutely adored, she would have laughed thinking that she neither needed nor wanted that to happen. The truth was that it happened, just a few minutes previous. She had been gently kissed for the first time in her life, and by a man who was not into playing games, or pretending that he did not care about her just to seem more interesting. On the contrary, he had demonstrated in the past few months that he was interested in her … and only her.

She rubbed her lips with her fingertips once more, hoping for the recent taste to stay a bit longer. She remembered the sudden event, hoping she would not forget what her first kiss had been like. Every girl she knew made a huge fuss about first kisses, and she had just got hers. She concentrated, trying to remember her lips against another's: the intriguing feeling, the warm soft skin, the comforting pleasure, and most of all the tenderness she had not been expecting.

"Are you going to do it again?", said Ginny breaking Hermione's concentration.

"Well…" she smiled shyly. "Yeah, I can't see why not."

"Can you imagine the faces of his fan club girls if they knew their Viktor Krum just kissed you? I can also imagine a certain person's head exploiting if he knew as well," Ginny gave out this last statement through a whisper.

"No! Ginny! You musn't tell anyone! I'd be so embarrassed! Viktor is so discreet; I don't want to ruin that."

"Alright! I won't tell…" she said, looking disappointed. "I still don't see why you want such mystery."

"I happen to enjoy my privacy."

Hermione was not sure if that was the only reason. She did feel a bit embarrassed. After the Yule Ball a lot of girls asked her things about Viktor. Some seemed too impressed at the thought of him dating her, others seemed rather curious since there were strong rumors about her 'relationship' with Harry thanks to the noble works of Rita Skeeter.

But most of all, she could not deny herself being upset about one of her best friend's reaction to the whole situation. That should not have upset him; most important it should not have upset her. But the truth was it did. She in fact did care what Ron thought, even if she swore differently. She in fact was still absolutely hurt with him for taking her for granted until he found out that she had a date for the ball. Oh, Ron made her absolutely mad. He waited until the last minute to ask her—as if his rude treatment could actually be called asking—and when he found out who she went with he had had the nerve to get mad. Screw Ron, she thought. It felt too complicated to get into that now. So she preferred to savor the moment privately, knowing that only Ginny would share her excitement.

"Okay … now tell me," Ginny hesitated, but decided to ask the question. "Did you feel it?"

"What? Feel it? Of course I felt it. It was a kiss, a good one … not that I have anything to compare it to," she added laughing.

"No! No! I mean did you feel it? You know… that thing you are supposed to feel when you have your first kiss. You know! The huge butterflies on your stomach … you do know … don't you?"

Hermione raised her eyebrow, trying to figure this out as she would try to figure out a complicated potion.

"Well … I was really nervous; my heart was trying to escape through my throat. But I also really liked it, if that's what you mean…"

"No! No! I mean what people often talk about! You know: the dizziness, your knees trembling, the fact that for a moment you forget you're standing someplace, you forget where you are, you forget about anybody who is around you, and you don't care because every single one of your feelings embraces you. And at last, for a few seconds everything goes black, until you're mind brings you back to reality. You felt that … didn't you?"

Hermione stared at Ginny´s detailed description. That was a good compilation of what she had heard about certain kisses. She smiled at the fact that her friend almost memorized it, probably to make sure she identified it when it happened to her. But Hermione wasn't even sure if all that was actually true. Still, she did not have to think her next answer. With a sigh she said:

"No, I didn't."

Ginny looked at her friend with disappointment.

"Ginny," said Hermione, with a little of disappointment in her voice as well. "I think that's what you are supposed to feel when you kiss someone you love for the first time."

Ginny bit her lip and looked as if she had just been told a crushing truth. But her disappointment was soon vanished and replaced by an expression of realization.

"Well then … we will just have to work and kiss our way through that feeling until we find it!," she replied with a mocking tone of voice.

"That's charming Ginny…"

"I'm serious!" said Ginny. "I'm not going to just sit around and wait! But you'll see, we'll have our perfect and spectacular kiss sometime. In the mean time you can concentrate on Viktor."

The girls laughed after Ginny's last statements. But Hermione could not stop thinking about her friend's description of a perfect kiss. She could not help but wondering if so big an emotion could be concentrated inside a kiss: powerful enough to shake her world and invite her to embrace the moment forgetting about everything and everyone else. She wondered if it was possible to have that deep of a connection, and most intriguing of all: if it was possible such amount of passion. She wondered if she could still feel as much with Viktor; maybe in time she would feel it. No, she was just fooling herself. She knew she wasn't going to feel that with him. She did not know how, but she knew. Viktor was okay—well, maybe he was close to being perfect. But for some stupid reason, perfect wasn't what she wanted. She wanted more than perfection.

She smiled at Ginny's positivism. But in the inside her smile was bigger. She suddenly surprised herself wondering what she would feel if she were to kiss somebody else. She snapped out of it a second later, shaking her head and remembering that Ginny was still in front of her. Besides, the simple thought of it was just ridiculous.

A/N: This is a small, simple piece. It's not much, but I had fun writing it, hope you liked it! I might continue it writing from the experience of other witches.